Page 100 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

21oha “krkCnh esa vkpk;Z fouksck Hkkos dh izklafxdrk

fake, inconstant, lafangâ. I think shyster may be a good English translation—a shyster is a disreputable
person who uses unethical and deceptive practices in business. Here is a section of Vinoba’s speech: 12

The rupee is a shyster. Sometimes it says four sers of jowar, sometimes it says two sers. And all of us
have made this shyster our boss. So our life has also become just like that.

Nowadays the lives of our villagers also have become miserable and dependent on others
because of greed for money [dkapu&yksHk]. Villagers need rupees to provide many other essentials of

life besides food. And the only way to get rupees is grain. They have to sell it in cities helplessly like
beggars. If villagers could get all the main essentials of their life in their own local area, they will be free

from slavery to the shyster rupee.
In September Vinoba writes ironically about the “wonder of money.” The culprit is inflation.

Wages of spinners increase but the higher wage buy less jowar than the old wage did. Yet all this
happens in the open and no one even realizes that three annas have really become two. “This is the

wonder of money! . . . . This magic of money, where it increases and also wastes away, is destroying
all our work.” 13

This anti-money rhetoric is a prelude to a major new step in kânchan-mukti. This comes in
October and Vinoba invests the occasion with extra significance by choosing Gandhi’s birthday (according

to the Hindu calendar) and undertaking a three-day fast (something unusual for him). Henceforth, he
announced, he will continue as bhikshu accepting alms but will now accept alms of body labor only—

no money. In explaining the change, he moves the goal beyond the ashram to the world and links
kânchan-mukti with sâmya-yoga. 14

The aim of this new step is obvious. We desire that there should be brotherhood, love and the
rule of non-violence in the whole world. This desire cannot be fulfilled so long as every able-bodied

individual does not take to body-labour. We have taken a vow of body-labour and given it a place in
the eleven vows . . . But for various reasons, we have not been able to resolve to live only on body-

labour . . . But now that India has attained Swaraj, we must live up to our faith with greater determination.
Only then will it be real Swaraj. It would show the path of salvation to the whole world . . .

This resolve of mine may appear to be personal as all resolves are personal in the beginning.
But ultimately such resolves do not confine themselves to the individual. I have made this beginning on

behalf of the entire society. Our work has been progressing satisfactorily on the whole; by God’s grace
the deficiencies will gradually disappear. I hope the new experiment will enable us to live a life which

may be called a life of Samya Yoga (disciplined equality), of non-violence or of religion. If this happens
our life will be blessed.

How did this new step work out? Well enough for Vinoba to endorse it at the Shivrampalli
15
Sammelan in April 1951. According to Suresh Ram’s summary , Vinoba said:

100